Millions of students may flunk this year

Public school teachers warned that at least 90 percent of the 17 million public school students enrolled this schoolyear may end up as repeaters if the Department of Education (DepEd) pushes through with the implementation of a new grading system .

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and the Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA) jointly called on Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus yesterday to recall two department orders laying down a "tougher" grading system in public schools that set passing scores in quizzes and tests at 75 percent from the previous 50 percent and even lower.

The new grading system forbade the use of transmutation tables in computing the grades of students where the passing grade is actually set at 50 percent because of the addition of a certain number of points to the raw score.

"We want Secretary de Jesus to recall the new grading system order as soon as possible. They should recall the order or they will have a more serious crisis in their hands by the end of the schoolyear this March," said Raymund Villanueva, ACT secretary-general.

He told The STAR that in almost all public schools throughout the country, teachers had witnessed at least 90 percent of their class fail their subjects in the third grading quarter this January.

Villanueva cited the case of some 260 students of four sections at the Quirino High School in Project 3, Quezon City where only one student passed a certain subject.

"The case has been the same in many classes in every public school in the country," he said.

Villanueva said that ACT and the MPSTA noted that the new grading system was "anti-student" as well as "anti-teacher."

He said it was unfair for the DepEd to implement a tougher standard in the wake of problems besetting the public school system due to the shortage of teachers, lack of classrooms, chairs and desks, and textbooks.

Villanueva said it would be a tougher decision for the teachers to implement massive flunking of their students since they will also fail to get their productivity pay based on the performance rating.

The "grade" the teachers get in their performance rating is taken from the number of students that pass or flunk in their respective class.

Villanueva painted a dark scenario for the next schoolyear if millions of "flunkers" or "repeaters" re-enroll in the elementary and high school levels.

This will worsen the problem of already crowded conditions in classrooms and schools if the new grading system is not recalled by the government, he said.